Ben Carter

“To idealise: all writing is a campaign against cliche. Not just cliches of the pen but cliches of the mind and cliches of the heart. When I dispraise, I am usually quoting cliches. When I praise, I am usually quoting the opposed qualities of freshness, energy and reverberation of voice.”
― Martin Amis, The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000

“Man and boy, Jeeves, I have been in some tough spots in my time, but this one wins the mottled oyster.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

“It is very true that one cannot always go by the principles of Marxism in deciding whether to reject or to accept a work of art. A work of art should, in the first place, be judged by its own law, that is, by the law of art. But Marxism alone can explain why and how a given tendency in art has originated in a given period of history; in other words, who it was who made a demand for such an artistic form and not for another, and why.”
― Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution

“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life... Life holds the mirror up to Art, and either reproduces some strange type imagined by painter or sculptor, or realizes in fact what has been dreamed in fiction.”
― Oscar Wilde, Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast Paperback 3 Mar 2016